Oral cancer

Dentists and their teams have a vital role to play in ensuring oral cancers are detected early and patients are informed about the risk factors.

With oral cancers, the key is spotting early on: early detection results in a roughly 90 per cent survival rate, compared to a 50 per cent survival rate for delayed diagnosis - we campaign to raise awareness of the issues, and provide resources for dental professionals to use.

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Free oral cancer toolkit for dental professionals with CPD

We have developed an
oral cancer toolkit in partnership with Cancer Research UK, to help dental health professionals identify and refer possible cases of oral cancer.

The toolkit includes information on the signs to look out for, how to respond, as well as possible risk factors and includes a CPD quiz, with 3 hours of verifiable CPD.

Campaigning for gender-neutral HPV vaccinations

Alongside
HPV Action, we campaigned for an extension of the HPV vaccine programme to include school-aged boys.

We welcomed the Government's announcement in July 2018, that all 12 and 13-year-olds in England will be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV).

Devolved administrations in Wales and Scotland were quick to commit to expansion of their vaccination programmes, which currently just cover 12-13 year old girls, to boys following recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). We still await England to follow suit.

On 11 April the Permanent Secretary of Health in Northern Ireland committed to extending the HPV vaccine to school boys aged 12/13 (school year 9) commencing in September 2019. BDA Northern Ireland continues to lobby for a catch up programme to be extended to older school boys to bring Northern Ireland in line with the rest of the UK.

Find out more

Resources to help you detect oral cancers

The BDA Library has copies of the
latest research findings on oral cancers and a host of other topics to help you keep your knowledge up-to-date

CPD and seminars: we run
seminars and courses each year on oral and mouth cancers and our online CPD ilearn can be done at any time

Getting involved: take action!

Each year, we encourage dentists and their teams to take part in the Oral Health Foundation's Mouth Cancer Action Month to raise awareness of mouth cancer with your patients.

We are keen to hear what you are doing to help raise awareness throughout the year, and we'd love to hear about any cases of oral cancer you have detected.
Please email and let us know if you have detected a case, or let us know what you've been doing in your practice.

Further Information

Working for you

Through policy and campaigning work, the BDA is able to ensure that the concerns of all sections of the profession are raised and that dentists' voices are heard at a national level:
join us.